🗓️ QUICK FRESHES for Homeschool Families – Week of 15 March 2026

Quick Freshes is our regular Sunday almanac for the homeschool week ahead. Pick one or two (or more!) of the items below each week and use them to enrich your homeschooling schedule. Subscribe to our free homeschool newsletter to get posts like these delivered right to your mailbox each week. Visit our River Houses calendar page to print your own homeschool calendars and planners for the entire year.

🇺🇸 AMERICA 250: Exactly 250 years ago this Tuesday, on March 17th in 1776, British troops evacuated the city of Boston, which had been held under siege for eleven months by New England militiamen and then by George Washington and the brand new Continental Army.

🇺🇸 OUR STATE-OF-THE-WEEK is Texas, and our COUNTRIES are Malta 🇲🇹, the Marshall Islands 🇲🇭, Mauritania 🇲🇷, and Mauritius 🇲🇺. (Our separate Sunday States & Countries post for the week went up just a few minutes ago.)

🌘 THE MOON at the beginning of this week is a waning crescent — a good time for stargazing! You can explore the solar system and the features of the moon in your backyard astronomy guide and your homeschool world atlas, and you can learn a host of stellar and lunar facts in the Astronomy section your current world almanac. Browse through our regular homeschool astronomy posts for even more.

🗓️️ TODAY, Sunday (15 March 2026) — Today is the 74th day of 2026; there are 291 days remaining in this common year. Learn more about different modern and historical calendars in the Science & Technology section of your recommended world almanac. 📚 Beware the Ides of March! 🗡️️️️ On the ancient Roman calendar, the 15th of March is called the “Ides” or midpoint of the month. On the Ides of March in 44 B.C., the dictator Julius Caesar was stabbed to death by Marcus Junius Brutus, Gaius Cassius Longinus, and several other Roman senators. Their ultimately unsuccessful coup led to the consolidation of the Roman state as an empire under Caesar’s successors and its decline as a republic. 🏛️ And for something completely different: Happy first day of National Surveyors Week! (Here’s a famous American surveyor you can remember this week.) 🧭

Monday (16 March 2026) — Today is the birthday of James Madison (1751–1836), “the Father of the Constitution” and the 4th President of the United States. 🇺🇸 And on this day in 1926 in a field in Auburn, Massachusetts, Robert Goddard (1882–1945) launched the first experimental liquid-fueled rocket. 🚀

Tuesday (17 March 2026) — Exactly 250 years ago today, on March 17th in 1776, British forces evacuated Boston after eleven months of siege. It was George Washington’s first victory in the American Revolution. 🇺🇸 And: Happy St. Patrick’s Day! Erin go Bragh! (Ireland forever!) ☘️

Wednesday (18 March 2026) — Today is the birthday of the great World War I poet Wilfred Owen (1893–1918). 🖊️ On this day in 1965, Soviet cosmonaut Alexei Leonov (1934–2019) became the first person to walk in space (for 12 minutes). 👨‍🚀 And our Wednesday tour of American Heritage Sites this week will take you to Big Bend National Park in Texas. 🇺🇸

Thursday (19 March 2026) — According to tradition, this is the day each year when the swallows come back to Capistrano (the San Juan Capistrano Mission, that is, in Orange County, California). 🐦 (No, that’s not a swallow, but it’s the closest we can get with today’s primitive emoji technology.) 😊

Friday (20 March 2026) — Happy First Day of (Astronomical) Spring! 🌷 Today is the March Equinox, known as the vernal or spring equinox in the northern hemisphere and the autumnal or fall equinox in the southern hemisphere (where today is the first day of fall). 🗓️️️ Today also is the birthday of “The Tenth Muse Lately Sprung Up in America,” the Puritan poet Anne Bradstreet (1612–1672). 🖊️ And it’s also the birthday of Mister Fred Rogers (1928–2003), everyone’s favorite neighbor. 🏡 And our Friday Bird Families lesson this week will introduce you to the garrulous Crows and Jays (Part I). Print your own River Houses Calendar of American Birds and follow the flyways with us throughout the year. 🦅

Saturday (21 March 2026) — Today is (according to the old Julian Calendar still in effect at the time) the birthday of Johann Sebastian Bach (1685–1750), one of the greatest musical composers in history. 🎼

Sunday (22 March 2026) — Today is the birthday of the English artist Randolph Caldecott (1846–1886), for whom the Caldecott awards for illustrated children’s books are named. 🎨 Our homeschool poem-of-the-week for the fourth week of March is Robert Frost’s lyrical meditation “Nothing Gold Can Stay,” a great memorization poem for early spring. Print your own River Houses Poetry Calendar and follow along with us throughout the year. 🌱 And our Sunday States & Countries for next week will be Iowa 🇺🇸, Mexico 🇲🇽, Micronesia 🇫🇲, Moldova 🇲🇩, and Monaco 🇲🇨.

🥂 🗡️ OUR WEEKLY TOAST, for the Ides of March, is a cry of freedom that has echoed for two thousand years: “Sic semper tyrannis!” (“Thus ever to tyrants!”) (It’s also the state motto of Virginia, and it’s a perfect toast this week to celebrate the 250th anniversary of the British evacuation of Boston in 1776!)

❡ Toasts can be a wonderful educational tradition for your homeschool lunch or dinner table. We offer one each week — you can take it up, or make up one of your own (“To North American dinosaurs!”), or invite a different person to come up with one for each meal (“To unpredictability in toasting!”). What will you toast in your homeschool this week? 🥂

🌍 🇲🇷 EVERYTHING FLOWS: The arid nation of Mauritania in northwestern Africa is one of our countries-of-the-week, so our Weekly World River is Oued Seguellil, an intermittent river or wadi that flows during the rainy season. You can find its location in your recommended homeschool atlas, and you can read more about it in the Oued Seguellil entry in Wikipedia or perhaps on your next visit to your local library.

❡ Children of Ocean: Why not do a homeschool study of world rivers over the course of the year? Take the one we select each week (above), or start with the river lists in the World Exploration & Geography section of your world almanac, and make it a project to look them all up in your atlas, or in a handy encyclopedia either online or on a weekly visit to your local library. A whole world of geographical learning awaits you. 🌎 🌍 🌏

What do you and your students have planned for your homeschool this week? 😊

❡ Lively springs: This is one of our regular “Quick Freshes” posts looking at the homeschool week ahead. Add your name to our River Houses mailing list and get these weekly messages delivered right to your mailbox all through the year. 📫

❡ Homeschool calendars: We have a whole collection of free, printable, educational homeschool calendars and planners available on our main River Houses calendar page. They will help you create a light and easy structure for your homeschool year. Give them a try today! 🗓️

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